Studies in the Age of Chaucer

REVIEWS Special circumstances were again at work in the decision by Dan Embree and Elizabeth Urquhart to present The Simonie in a parallel-text edition of the three manuscripts, preserving theversions ofthe three author scribes in a way that fulfills the purposes if not the methods ofsocial-text theory. A similar individuality was to some extent at work in the efforts of the four citizen-scribes who produced five transcriptions of the Chester mystery cycle afterperformancehadbeenbanned.David Millsdescribesthereasons heand Robert Lumianskysaw for trying torecoverthelost official "Register" in their edition of the cycle. Rosamund Allen provides us with "Some Sceptical Observations" on the three editions ofTheAwntyrs offArthure turned out in the 1960s by herself and two other graduate students, Ralph Hanna and Robert Gates. All three used the "direct-method" editing associated with Kane and Donaldson. Allen extends her discussion to the problems characteristic of short ro­ mances, such as thedifficulty ofapplyingdirection ofvariation to formulaic language and the possibility of oral transmission as part of the textual tradition. The collection reflects the revolution in editing that has taken place in the past fifty years. Direction ofvariation and a keener awareness of what scribes can do to a text complement textual rigor and stimulate editorial interpretation. The collection also reflects the judicious but unobtrusive editing of Derek Pearsall, whose encouragement as editor, organizer, and mentor several of the contributors acknowledge. CHARLES A. OWEN,JR. University of Connecticut RUSSELL A. PECK. Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose andBoece, Treatise on the Astrolabe, Equatorie ofthe Planetis, Lost Works, andChaucerian Apocrypha: An AnnotatedBibliography, 1900-1985. The Chaucer Bibliographies, vol. 2. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 1988. Pp. xviii, 402. $60.00. This is the second volume of The ChaucerBibliographies, which Toronto is publishing under the general editorship of A. J. Colaianne and Thomas Hahn; it follows Peck's bibliography of Chaucer's Lyn·cs andAnelida and Arcite (Toronto, 1983, reviewed in SAC 6 [1984]:216-19). Because the 273 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER works it covers are so pivotal to Chaucer's formation as a writer, this annotated bibliography, perhaps even more than the first, belongs on the top shelf of every Chaucerian's library. Not only is it indispensable as a reference tool, it is an extremely well-founded work of criticism as well. The works the bibliography annotates are for Peck more closely linked than they might at first appear. Since it may itself be apocryphal, the Romaunt ought to be treated with the Apocrypha. Boece, like the writings on astronomy, is in prose, and The Consolation ofPhilosophy is a primary source for the Romaunt's original. The Lost Works are probably transla­ tions, as areRomaunt, Boece, and portions ofAstrolabe. Now these are not connections of critical convenience or connivance, because they are more than merely formal. As Peck says, any discussion of Chaucer's prosody, prose style, translation, allegory, and audience will inevitably refer to these works, andadiscussionofany one willnecessarily refer to one or more of the others. Moreover, these are the works that define Chaucer as the great translator and master of French courtly rhetoric, the philosophical poet, and the man of science-the very attainments which most distinguished Chaucer's poetry for his first readers. Peck's understanding of how these texts are tied together, we see, and of their centrality to Chaucer's major poetry, isfarmore than a legitimatenod to reception theory; itbespeaks his awareness thatan annotated bibliography, asmuch asa dictionary, isa work of interpretation whose principles ofinclusion are never limited simply by subject matter. Peck, therefore, both commendably and rightly, will in­ clude items that deal only tangentially with, for instance, the Romaunt, if their primary concern is Chaucerian allegory or even allegory in general. For Peck, a bibliography extends the boundaries of a text even as it defines them. For each of the works, Peck seeks to annotate all items that have appeared between 1900 and 1985, though he gives the reader a good idea of the major nineteenth-century scholarship as well. As in the earlier bibliogra­ phy, Peck includes a number of unpublished dissertations and some sub­ stantive reviews. The cross referencing is very full; the annotations them­ selves are...